Your browser does not support JavaScript!
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com
1887

access icon free Security threats and protection procedures for optical networks

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 28/11/2016, Accepted 07/05/2017, Revised 09/04/2017, Published 15/05/2017

This study addresses the issues of optical network survivability to attacks in the optical physical layer. The authors comprehensively review and discuss the vulnerability of optical networks towards various types of security threats that could appear in the network optical layer: passive eavesdropping attacks and active optical attacks like in-band jamming, out-of-band crosstalk attacks, amplifier attacks and physical infrastructure attacks. They describe and discuss several protection procedures and monitoring techniques to improve network attack survivability. Numerical simulation performances of some attacks and protection schemes are also provided.

Inspec keywords: security of data; telecommunication network reliability; optical fibre networks; optical crosstalk

Other keywords: protection procedures; active optical attacks; amplifier attacks; in-band jamming; security threats; passive eavesdropping attacks; optical network survivability; physical infrastructure attacks; optical physical layer attack; optical networks; out-of-band crosstalk attacks

Subjects: Subscriber loops; Computer communications; Optical communication devices, equipment and systems; Reliability; Optical fibre networks

References

    1. 1)
      • 24. Wu, B., Tait, A.N., Chang, M.P., et al: ‘WDM optical steganography based on amplified spontaneous emission noise’, Opt. Lett., 2014, 39, (20), pp. 5925–5928.
    2. 2)
      • 16. Rejeb, R., Leeson, M.S., Machuca, C.M., et al: ‘Control and management issues in all-optical networks’, J. Netw., 2010, 5, (2), pp. 132–139.
    3. 3)
      • 55. Louchet, H., Kuzmin, K., Richter, A.: ‘Improved DSP algorithms for coherent 16-QAM transmission’. Proc. European Conf. on Optical Communication (ECOC), 2008, paper TU1.E.6.
    4. 4)
      • 2. Rejeb, R., Leeson, M.S., Green, R.J.: ‘Fault and attack management in all-optical networks’, IEEE Commun. Mag., 2006, 44, (11), pp. 79–86.
    5. 5)
      • 27. Skorin-Kapov, N., Chen, J., Wosinska, L.: ‘A new approach to optical networks security: attack-aware routing and wavelength assignment’, IEEE/ACM Trans. Net., 2010, 18, (3), pp. 750–760.
    6. 6)
      • 6. Everett, B.: ‘Tapping into fibre optical cables’, Netw. Secur., 2007, 207, (5), pp. 13–16.
    7. 7)
      • 50. Ramaswami, R., Sivarajan, K.N.: ‘Optical networks, A practical perspective’ (Morgan Kaufmann, 2001, 2nd edn.).
    8. 8)
      • 53. Xu, T., Jacobsen, G., Popov, S., et al: ‘Chromatic dispersion compensation in coherent transmission system using digital filters’, Opt. Express, 2010, 18, pp. 16243–16257.
    9. 9)
      • 52. Agrawal, G.P.: ‘Nonlinear fiber optics’ (Academic Press, 2013, 5th edn.).
    10. 10)
      • 22. Fok, M.P., Zhexing, W., Yanhua, Y., et al: ‘Optical layer security in fiber-optic networks’, IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Sec., 2011, 6, (3), pp. 725–736.
    11. 11)
      • 3. Allen, I.: ‘Western spy agencies tapped major undersea fiber optic cable’, Intelnews.org, August, 2013. Available at http://intelnews.org/2013/08/29/01--1331/.
    12. 12)
      • 25. Levy, A., Mahlab, U.: ‘Self checking optical add drop multiplexer’. US Patent 8,050,563 B2, 2011.
    13. 13)
      • 33. Lee, J.H., Jung, D.K., Kim, C.H., et al: ‘OSNR monitoring technique using polarization-nulling method’, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., 2001, 13, (1), pp. 88–90.
    14. 14)
      • 43. Shulkind, G., Nazarathy, M.M.: ‘Nonlinear digital back propagation compensator for coherent optical OFDM based on factorizing the Volterra series transfer function’, Opt. Express, 2013, 21, (11), pp. 13145–13161.
    15. 15)
      • 54. Godard, D.: ‘Self-recovering equalization and carrier tracking in two dimensional data communication systems’, IEEE Trans. Commun., 1980, 28, (11), pp. 1867–1875.
    16. 16)
      • 18. Soto, H., Erasme, D., Guekos, G.: ‘5-Gb/s XOR optical gate based on cross-polarization modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers’, Photon. Technol. Lett., 2001, 13, (4), pp. 335–337.
    17. 17)
      • 37. Annoni, A., Morichetti, F.: ‘Enhancing the sensitivity of interferometer based in-band OSNR monitoring by narrow band filtering’, J. Lightw. Technol., 2013, 31, (9), pp. 1447–1453.
    18. 18)
      • 23. Wu, B., Wang, Z., Tian, Y., et al: ‘Optical steganography based on amplified spontaneous emission noise’, Opt. Express, 2013, 21, (2), pp. 2065–2071.
    19. 19)
      • 39. Dong, Z., Tao Lau, A.P., Lu, C.: ‘OSNR monitoring for QPSK and 16-QAM systems in presence of fiber nonlinearities for digital coherent receivers’, Opt. Express, 2012, 20, (17), pp. 19520–19534.
    20. 20)
      • 13. Furdek, M., Bosiljevac, M., Skorin-Kapov, N., et al: ‘Gain competition in optical amplifiers: a case study’, Proc. of MIPRO 2010, 2010, pp. 467–472.
    21. 21)
      • 46. Dahan, D., Mahlab, U.: ‘In-band OSNR system margin and overall link impairment level monitoring techniques using an optical coherent receiver’, J. Lightw. Technol., 2015, 33, (19), pp. 4063–4070.
    22. 22)
      • 8. Peng, Y., Sun, Z., Du, S., et al: ‘Propagation of all-optical crosstalk attack in transparent optical networks’, Opt. Eng., 2011, 50, (8), p. 085002.
    23. 23)
      • 4. Gringeri, S., Bitar, N., Xia, T.H.: ‘Extending software defined network principles to include optical transport’, IEEE Commun. Mag., 2013, 51, (3), pp. 32–40.
    24. 24)
      • 31. Dahan, D., Mahlab, U., Teixeira, A., et al: ‘Optical performance monitoring for translucent/transparent optical networks’, IET Optoelectr., 2011, 5, (1), pp. 1–18.
    25. 25)
      • 44. Ranzini, S.M., Parahyba, V.E., Vilela, T., et al: ‘Digital back-propagation ASIC design for high-speed coherent optical system’. Proc. of Microwave and Optoelectronics Conf. (IMOC), 2015, pp. 1–5.
    26. 26)
      • 56. Viterbi, A.J., Viterbi, A.N.: ‘Nonlinear estimation of PSK-modulated carrier phase with application to burst digital transmission’, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory, 1983, 29, (4), pp. 543–551.
    27. 27)
      • 9. Winzer, P.J., Gnauck, A.H., Konczykowska, A., et al: ‘Penalties from in-band crosstalk for advanced optical modulation formats’. Proc. European Conf. on Optical Communication (ECOC), 2011, paper Tu.5.B. 7.
    28. 28)
      • 19. Kim, J.H., Jhon, Y.M., Byun, Y.T., et al: ‘All optical XOR gate using semiconductor optical amplifiers without additional input beam’, Photon. Technol. Lett., 2002, 14, (10), pp. 1436–1438.
    29. 29)
      • 51. Marcuse, D., Menyuk, C.R., Wai, P.K.A.: ‘Application of the Manakov-PMD Equation to studies of signal propagation in optical fiber with randomly varying birefringence’, J. Lightw. Technol., 1997, 15, (9), pp. 1735–1745.
    30. 30)
      • 48. Otani, T., Horiuchi, Y., Kawazawa, T., et al: ‘Fault localization of optical WDM submarine cable networks using coherent-optical time-domain reflectometry’, Photonics Technol. Lett., 1998, 10, (7), pp. 1000–1002.
    31. 31)
      • 26. Dahan, D., Mahlab, U.: ‘Counter direction jamming method for eavesdropping prevention in data center interconnects’. Proc. Int. Conf. Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2016, paper Mo.B3.2.
    32. 32)
      • 21. Abbade, M.L.F., Cvijetic, M., Messani, C.A., et al: ‘Double all-optical encryption of M-QAM signals based on spectrally sliced encoding keys’. Proc. Int. Conf. Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2015, paper TuA1.3.
    33. 33)
      • 35. Dahan, D., Mahlab, U., Levy, D.: ‘Stimulated brillouin scattering based in-band OSNR monitoring technique for 40 and 100 Gbps optical transparent networks’, Opt. Express, 2010, 18, (15), pp. 15769–15783.
    34. 34)
      • 17. Habiba, M.F., Tornatoreb, M., Dikbiyikc, F., et al: ‘Disaster survivability in optical communication networks’, Comput. Commun., 2013, 36, (6), pp. 630–644.
    35. 35)
      • 41. Oyama, T., Hoshida, T., Nakashima, H., et al: ‘Nonlinear compensation technologies for future optical communication systems’. Proc. SPIE 9389, Next-Generation Optical Communication: Components, Sub-Systems, and Systems IV, 2015, p. 93890I.
    36. 36)
      • 30. Rejeb, R., Leeson, M.S., Green, R.J.: ‘Cost optimization method for multiple attack localization and identification in all-optical networks’. Proc. Int. Conf. Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2005, vol. 1, pp. 101–106.
    37. 37)
      • 7. Iqbal, M.Z., Fathallah, H., Belhadj, N.: ‘Optical fiber tapping: methods and precautions’, Proc. of HONET 2011, 2011, pp. 164–168.
    38. 38)
      • 40. Ip, E., Kahn, J.: ‘J. Compensation of dispersion and nonlinear impairments using digital backpropagation’, J. Lightw. Technol., 2008, 26, (20), pp. 3416–3425.
    39. 39)
      • 58. Fatadin, I., Savory, S.J.: ‘Compensation of frequency offset for 16-QAM optical coherent system using QPSK partitioning’, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., 2011, 23, (17), pp. 1246–1248.
    40. 40)
      • 49. Devichara, D., Dahl, S., Gurusami, A., et al: ‘Low optical power embedded OTDR’. Proc. Optical Fiber Communications Conf. (OFC), 2015, paper W4D.4.
    41. 41)
      • 45. Liga, G., Xu, T., Alvarado, A., et al: ‘On the performance of multichannel digital backpropagation in high-capacity long-haul optical transmission’, Opt. Express, 2014, 22, (24), pp. 30053–30062.
    42. 42)
      • 57. Fatadin, I., Ives, D., Savory, S.J.: ‘Laser linewidth tolerance for 16-QAM coherent optical systems using QPSK partitioning’, IEEE Photon. Technol. Lett., 2010, 22, (9), pp. 631–633.
    43. 43)
      • 28. Manousakis, K., Ellinas, G.: ‘Attack-aware planning of transparent optical networks’, Opt. Switch. Netw., 2016, 19, (2), pp. 97–109.
    44. 44)
      • 1. Furdek, M., Skorin-Kapov, N., Zsigmod, S., et al: ‘Vulnerabilities and security issues in optical networks’. Proc. Int. Conf. Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2014, paper Tu.D3.5.
    45. 45)
      • 14. Fagertun, A.M., Skjoldstrup, B.: ‘Flexible transport network expansion via open WDM interfaces’. Proc. Int. Conf. on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), 2013, pp. 385–389.
    46. 46)
      • 20. Zahng, M., Cui, Y., Zhan, Y., et al: ‘Optical encryption/decryption of 8PSK signal using FWM-based modified XOR’, Appl. Opt., 2015, 54, (25), pp. 7813–7819.
    47. 47)
      • 36. Dahan, D., Mahlab, U., Shachaf, Y.: ‘In-band optical signal-to-noise ratio monitoring technique based on Brillouin fiber ring laser’, Appl. Opt., 2013, 52, (7), pp. 1487–1496.
    48. 48)
      • 42. Guiomar, F.P., Reis, J.D., Teixeira, A.L., et al: ‘Mitigation of intra-channel nonlinearities using a frequency domain Volterra series equalizer’, Opt. Express, 2012, 20, (2), pp. 1360–1369.
    49. 49)
      • 38. Faruk, M.S., Mori, Y., Kikuchi, K.: ‘In-band estimation of optical signal-to-noise-ratio from equalized signals in digital coherent receivers’, Photonic J., 2014, 6, (1), pp. 1–9.
    50. 50)
      • 11. Bruno, G., Camera, M.M.: ‘Securing optical monitoring ports of transmission network elements’. Proc. 2014 Fotonica AEIT Italian Conference Of Photonics Technologies, 2014.
    51. 51)
      • 34. Anderson, T.B., Clarke, K., Dods, S.D., et al: ‘Robust, low cost, in-band optical signal to noise monitoring using polarization diversity’. Proc. of Optical Fiber Communication Conf. (OFC), 2007, paper OMM3.
    52. 52)
      • 10. Filer, M., Tibuleac, S.: ‘N-degree ROADM architecture comparison: broadcast-and-select versus route-and-select in 120 Gb/s DP-QPSK transmission systems’. Proc. Optical Fiber Communications Conf. (OFC), 2014, paper Th1I2.
    53. 53)
      • 12. Bononi, A., Serena, P., Rossi, N., et al: ‘Which is the dominant nonlinearity in long-haul PDM QPSK coherent transmissions?’. Proc. European Conf. on Optical Communication (ECOC), September 2010, paper Th.10.E.1.
    54. 54)
      • 5. Kreutz, D., Ramos, F.M.V., Verissimo, P.: ‘Towards secure and dependable software-defined networks’. Proc. Second ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Hot Topics in Software Defined Networking, 2013, pp. 55–60.
    55. 55)
      • 15. Skorin-Kapov, N., Furdek, M., Zsigmond, S., et al: ‘Physical-layer security in evolving optical networks’, Commun. Mag., 2016, 54, (8), pp. 110–117.
    56. 56)
      • 29. Mahlab, U.: ‘Technique for managing optical network’. US patent 2010/0104283 A1, 2010.
    57. 57)
      • 47. Schmuck, H., Hehmann, J., Straub, M., et al: ‘Embedded OTDR techniques for cost-efficient fibre monitoring in optical access networks’. Proc. European Conf. on Optical Communications (ECOC), 2006, Mo3.5.4.
    58. 58)
      • 32. Caballero, A., Borkowski, R., Zibar, D., et al: ‘Performance monitoring techniques supporting cognitive optical networking’. Proc. Int. Conf. Transparent Optical Networks (ICTON), 2013, paper Tu.B1.3.
http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/iet-opt.2016.0150
Loading

Related content

content/journals/10.1049/iet-opt.2016.0150
pub_keyword,iet_inspecKeyword,pub_concept
6
6
Loading
Print this page
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address